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vol. cxlvi, no. 80
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Faculty discuss ROTC, athletics
Since 1891
News in brief
McCormick case moves back to R.I.
Mather, associate registrar for enrollment services. Though official transcripts are currently issued in hard copy, the registrar’s office hopes to launch an electronic transcript service by the spring, said University Registrar Robert Fitzgerald. Many companies, such as Google, want applicants to provide official electronic transcripts sent directly by their schools, he said, rather than through intermediaries like the CareerLAB. The $4 fee was set by the Corporation in 1971, Fitzgerald said. The price tag covers auxiliary costs including the watermark, security paper and postage, he said. Fitzgerald said the additional $2.25 processing fee was introduced in 2007 when the registrar’s office paired up with National Stu-
Evan Thomas / Herald
William McCormick’s lawsuit against the University and two alums was transferred to its sixth judge yesterday. The case was transferred back to Rhode Island from New Hampshire and will be heard by Rhode Island District Federal Court Judge John McConnell ’80. McCormick motioned to have the case returned to McConnell Sept. 16, citing the cost of conducting the litigation in New Hampshire. The University and the alums both filed motions opposing transfer of the case to McConnell. McConnell’s confirmation as a federal judge this year was held up by Republicans in the U.S. Senate for over a year. Republicans based their opposition in part on the claim that McConnell’s history as a plaintiffs’ lawyer would make him partial toward plaintiffs in cases against powerful defendants, a charge which he denied. McCormick, a former member of the class of 2010, claims he was falsely accused of rape in 2006 and unjustly forced out of the University in part because of the influence of his accuser’s father, a prominent donor and fundraiser for the University. McCormick is suing the University, his accuser and her father for unspecified damages. The defendants have all denied wrongdoing. The case was first brought to Providence Superior Court in 2009. It was then transferred to federal court. The first federal judge to hear the case recused himself in January after his daughter applied to Brown. A second federal judge recused himself after it came to light that one of the alums’ lawyers had represented him when he was accused of judicial misconduct in the 1980s. Rhode Island District Chief Judge Mary Lisi then recused herself, presumably because she is married to one of the defendants’ other lawyers. At the time, because McConnell had not yet been confirmed, there were no federal judges in Rhode Island able to hear the case, so it was sent to a judge in New Hampshire. McCormick and his accuser are both scheduled to be deposed later this month.
continued on page 2
Some students applying for jobs through CareerLAB find sending out official transcripts costly.
— Herald staff
By Shefali Luthra Senior Staff Writer
President Ruth Simmons solicited input at yesterday’s faculty meeting about the report released Sept. 7 by the committee tasked with reexamining the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps’ relationship with the University. This was the faculty’s first opportunity to comment on the report. Simmons also addressed last year’s Athletics Review Committee report, and Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 discussed the search for a new director for the Watson Institute for International Studies. Simmons told faculty members she hopes to make a recommendation to the Corporation at this month’s meeting regarding ROTC. Because the committee determined ROTC to be an extracurricular program, the faculty lacks authority over its status, but Simmons said the University is still interested in its recommendation. Gregory Elliott, professor of sociology, suggested the ROTC committee release a “minority report” becontinued on page 5
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The Greek Council has received little information about the University’s security service search, a representative said.
Possible security shift rankles some By Sarah Mancone Staff Writer
With the impending expiration of Brown’s contract with Green Horn Management to provide security at Greek and sporting events, the University is weighing contracts with other companies. But students involved in Greek life and athletics have made it clear that a new firm would not be welcome. The University will reevaluate its security service and assess pricing of competing security companies before the contract expires this year, wrote Ricky Gresh, senior director for student engagement, in an email to The Herald. The Student Activities Office and the Department of Athletics, in consultation with other offices including
the Department of Public Safety, will make final vendor recommendations, Gresh wrote. Currently, Brown is employing C.C. Security Corp on a trial basis at athletic games and events, he wrote. “All potential vendors,including GHM, will be invited to compete for Brown’s business,” Gresh wrote. For now, GHM is still the University’s primary security service. Though the University must garner student input before making a final decision as part of the formal search procedure, Greek Council representatives have received little information about the process, said Araceli Mendez ’13, chair of the council. The Greek system has no complaints with GHM and does not want to see the com-
pany go, Mendez said. If GHM is replaced, the decision will not go unnoticed, said Jon Land ’79, alumni adviser to the Greek System, alumni president of Delta Phi Fraternity and vice president of the Brown Football Association. “Plenty of people are going to notice, and plenty of people are going to care,” he said. GHM has been providing security at sporting events for 10 years and at Greek events for five, said Land. During this period, GHM has not received any student complaints, though it dealt with problems of sexual abuse, Emergency Medical Services and fights, he said. The security company itself has continued on page 2
By Ben Kutner Senior Staff Writer
inside
Mark Sabbagh ’12 was shocked when he found out he would have to pay for his official transcript. When he applied this summer to medical school programs, he had to pay $6.25 to send an official transcript to each school, on top of an already expensive application process. Official transcripts from the Office of the Registrar are only available in paper form and are not released without payment. Whether a student is applying to a graduate program, an international study abroad program or a job, transcripts costs $4 with a $2.25 processing fee for each recipient, even if the transcript is issued directly to the student. “We have students occasionally unhappy about it,” said Lisa
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The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Students frustrated with Security transcript fees, wait time contract remains on tenterhooks continued from page 1
dent Clearinghouse, a third-party student degree verification service. The registrar’s office sends around 20,000 to 25,000 official transcripts out each year, said Fitzgerald, adding that this pool is not limited to transcripts of graduating seniors. Students can obtain transcripts by paying through the registrar’s website or in person at the registrar’s office. Though students can view and print out unofficial transcripts from Banner, the official transcript contains the University seal and the registrar’s signature. Official transcripts do not show classes that students dropped or failed, making them a more attractive option even if applications only
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require unofficial transcripts. Students lose the ability to access their Banner pages three months after graduating, Fitzgerald said. The registrar requires three to five business days — or five to 10 days at the end of semesters — to process requests for official transcripts. “I don’t understand why it takes time,” Sabbagh said, adding that it took him four or five days to get his transcript. “At UNC-Chapel Hill, where I spent my first two years of college, I could go to the registrar’s office and get an official transcript printed out and handed to me in less than five minutes,” wrote Suzanne Michalak ’12 in an email to The Herald.
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continued from page 1 heard very little from the University, wrote Karen Boyle, owner of GHM, in an email to The Herald. “Brown, in all honesty, has not been very forthcoming. We seem to be finding out about various proposals and ideas as they happen,” she wrote. “We greatly enjoy working for the University, but I am surprised by some of their actions.” For now, GHM is working on an adjusted contract with the SAO that will keep the company involved for the rest of the year, Boyle wrote. She is concerned about certain effects of the loss of a contract, including safety at athletic events and student activities and the well-being of GHM’s empoyees. Many GHM employees make ends meet through part-time work. “If GHM was to lose the Brown contract, it would not make sense to keep an operation in Rhode Island,” Boyle wrote. She said the company would likely shut down if its losses were high. In the end, “if referees are doing a good job, then you do not notice them,” Land said. “I do not think anyone would say GHM is not fair, is not respectful and is not diligent.”
Campus News 5
The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Committee expects fewer Simmons undecided about team cuts tenure cases this year continued from page 1
By Shefali Luthra Senior Staff Writer
As a result of last spring’s revisions to the tenure promotion procedure, the Tenure, Promotion and Appointments Committee expects tenure applications to be “sharply reduced” this year, Kenneth Breuer, professor of engineering and chair of the committee, wrote in an email to The Herald. The revisions extended the probationary period before which assistant professors come up for tenure review, allowing those who would have been up for review this year to push back their applications until next year. Last year, TPAC and the Office of the Provost reviewed 22 requests for tenure from assistant professors, according to TPAC’s annual report. Of the 22 cases, 18 were approved. The reduction will allow TPAC to focus on other projects that have traditionally gone by the wayside, said Dean of the Faculty Kevin McLaughlin P’12 at yesterday’s faculty meeting. These could include recommending ways to align departmental standards for tenure.
McLaughlin is writing a report for the Oct. 20-22 Corporation meetings on how to best implement last year’s revisions to the University tenure process. Provost Mark Schlissel P’15 said further significant changes to the tenure process will not be made, as the University now has “very good” procedures. But he and McLaughlin both said the University plans to report statistics on tenure promotion to the Corporation regularly. Schlissel said the administration will target a tenure ratio — the proportion of total faculty members who are tenured — between 70 and 75 percent. Tenure figures range between 50 percent and 85 percent among the University’s peers, Schlissel said. Though Brown has historically had a tenure rate between 75 and 80 percent, that figure rose to 82 percent several years ago. But it is important to treat each tenure promotion case individually based on the candidate’s merit, Schlissel said, rather than trying to fit a target rate. It is important to be “rigorous” in evaluating tenure candidates, he added.
cause the committee did not reach a consensus on each recommendation. Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron, chair of the committee, said the committee’s third recommendation, which suggested that Simmons discuss naval or air force options with the Department of Defense, was approved by a 6-4 margin. Simmons said the option remains to establish cross-registration programs with other universities, similar to the University’s current arrangement with Providence College. Simmons called the matter of transgender discrimination a “very important issue” for the community. ROTC’s presence on a university campus is “not a litmus test for loyalty to the country,” she added, and the University must not get caught up in trying to emulate its peers. Simmons also discussed last spring’s athletics report, which recommended cutting four varsity teams. Though membership in the Ivy League requires competitiveness in athletics, the league’s guiding principles require subordination of athletics to academics, she said. The baseline academic index — a
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rating based on a potential recruit’s GPA and SAT score — should be increased, she said, and the University must reduce the number of spots reserved for athletes. Simmons said she has not reached a decision on the proposed team cuts. But she plans to examine salaries for coaches and the possibility of matching athletes’ financial aid offers with those offered by peer institutions. Schlissel addressed the ongoing effort to recruit a new director for the Watson Institute, which is headed this year by Carolyn Dean, who pre-
viously served as senior associate dean of the faculty. The search committee will be chaired by Susan Alcock, professor of anthropology and classics, and will consist of two other faculty members and two members of the institute’s board of directors. A search firm will be hired to direct the process. The committee will seek someone who works in the field of international policy — possibly from a non-governmental organization or economic council, Schlissel said. The director must also have academic experience, he said.
6 Editorial & Letters Editorial
The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Editorial cartoon
by a n d r e w a n ta r
Old problem, new fixes We applaud recent advances made by the University to improve undergraduate advising with practical web-based tools. Particularly important at Brown because of the New Curriculum’s open, designyour-own approach to education, advising has long been the source of complaints from undergraduates. We are, therefore, happy to recognize concrete positive steps in this critical area. Codified in the Faculty Rules and Regulations and affirmed by the 2008 report of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education, advising is for the most part the faculty’s responsibility. Professors must remain at the core of Brown advising. But, in the current publish-or-perish academic climate, professors have less time to be teachers and guides to undergraduates. Though the merits of this increased focus on scholarship can be debated, it is clear that optimizing student-adviser interaction is essential. Among other things, this means disseminating information about courses, concentrations and University resources as efficiently as possible. Students, armed with greater academic and co-curricular institutional awareness, can make better use of the contact they do have with advisers. Advising Sidekick, Focal Point and other new online advising tools seem to achieve this utility. They also reduce the random, scattershot way in which underclassmen acquire institutional knowledge. Though online resources can never offer the same level of intimate detail, they can offer better odds at holding the information students seek. The Office of the Dean of the College created Focal Point, a tool designed to aid underclassmen in exploring concentration options. It pairs a clear and concise description of concentration programs with information about liberal learning goals, capstones and honors, possible career paths and links to program requirements and departmental undergraduate group webpages. Focal Point is easy to navigate and fills a clear void in previous advising resources. Another valuable addition to online advising is Advising Sidekick. Though little-known and less-utilized by upperclassmen who arrived on campus after its introduction, Advising Sidekick centralizes a variety of resources — useful links for academic support and student life, a listing of relevant events and contact numbers. It also facilitates communication between advisees and peer and faculty advisers, though this feature’s advantage over email is unclear. Of course, advising is critical to more than just academics. We are encouraged by recent changes to CareerLAB and are confident that students will be better served by its increased accessibility and enriched offerings. “GChat office hours” advising is a convenient way to get quick answers from CareerLAB advisers. Additionally, the Job and Internship Board, a valuable tool for students searching for and applying to jobs, has been a useful CareerLAB offering. The board has benefited the hundreds of seniors now engaged in on-campus recruiting by providing centralized resources, information and opportunities for communication with potential employers. That said, we see the potential for improvements to the website and encourage CareerLAB leadership to actively seek out and heed student suggestions. As at most colleges, undergraduate advising at Brown is far from perfect. Demands on faculty time and increasing pressure on students to over-perform have strained traditional advising models. Though more work remains to be done, new tools have certainly improved advising, and we applaud the efforts toward continued improvement. Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.
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letters to the editor Clocking the hours, ringing the bells To the Editor: Thanks for bringing the plight of Carrie Tower to light (“Symbol of love stands silent after 107 years,” Oct. 4). Some corrections, however: The University Hall bell has always summoned students to class, while the chime in Carrie Tower signaled the hour until the students in Hope College complained that it interfered with their sleep. It was then adjusted to not ring during sleep hours. It has been a couple of decades since the hands of the tower’s clock were frozen in time, awaiting repair. Another interesting note: Money was once donated for the installation of a carillon in honor of
Lucian Sharpe 1893, but somehow, it was never forthcoming. Peter Mackie ’59 Sports Archivist To the Editor: How about a full story on the Carrie Tower followed by a serious drive to restore what appears to be an irreplaceable treasure? How much would be needed for the whole works? Elizabeth Baecher ’57
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Opinions 7
The Brown Daily Herald Wednesday, October 5, 2011
We are all subjects By Julian Park Opinions Columnist There are a plethora of ways in which our society normalizes able-bodied people at the exclusion of those whose bodies are differently- or dis-abled. Ability or disability is judged at a glance, frozen in place with a stare, and in part separates those we consider capable subjects from incapable objects — objects that are more obstacles than people. That said, ability or disability does not exist in bodies themselves but only when bodies come into relation with activities, environments and tools. Bicycle design is one example of the privileging of certain bodies. The Brown community is obviously not the proper target for a demand that bikes be made to fit all bodies, nor is it my right to make demands on behalf of people who are capable of making their own. Nonetheless, allow me to briefly draw attention to one example of how some Brown students subtly perpetuate the privilege of the able over the disabled. Anywhere you find a handrail on campus, you will notice bikes locked to it as if it were a bike rack. Guilty of the practice myself, I am aware of why people do this — it’s convenient. Still, there are very few occasions when there are no other options but to lock one’s bike to a handrail. It was not until last spring when a friend brought up the subject that I
thought twice. Handrails have a purpose. Some people not only use them but rely on them to get where they are going safely. My friend described seeing a blind student reaching for a handrail on the steps of Faunce House, tripping on a bike and falling down the stairs. I have gone out of my way to lock my bike to racks ever since. Made easier by the denial of their subjectivity, the needs of the disabled are often flat-out ignored. A similar denial of subjectivity and need operates in the form
circumstances, the risk of doing harm in any circumstance, no matter how great or small, does not make it worthwhile. And let’s be clear — with objectification, the harm can be great, particularly if the people objectified have experienced other forms of oppression or violence, including sexual violence, the effect of which can truly make them feel like an object. When a person stares at, whistles or calls after another person, it is, with few exceptions, purely and simply a violation.
Objectification is the necessary groundwork for any form of violence, sexual or otherwise.
of sexual objectification, which was the topic of two recent Herald opinions columns (“The problem with Thayer on a Friday night,” Sept. 22 and “Objectification for fun and profit,” Sept. 30). The most recent of these, though clearly well-intentioned, demands a response. The central question David Hefer ’12 asks us in his column is, given that “objectification can be, and often is, done without hurting anyone,” then “why end it?” For the sake of argument, I will grant the assumption and respond solely to the question. The answer is as obvious as why one should not drink and drive — because even if a practice is not harmful in some
The way a person looks or dresses is not synonymous with a request for attention. Hefer’s examples of socially acceptable objectification — B.D.S.M. and pornography — are not analogous to stares or catcalls. The difference, which I will oversimplify for brevity’s sake, is that the masochist or the porn star has made a choice to be objectified. Even as objects, they remain subjects. But with a public encounter between strangers, there is no analogous remnant of subjectivity, unless, of course, you let the person go about undisturbed. Early in his column, Hefer points to the disequilibrium between men and women. Though I find it problematic to claim that most men would enjoy being objectified
— does a male factory worker enjoy being treated like a machine? or, to return to my earlier discussion, does a male disabled person want to be stared at? — it is undoubtedly true that many men, though not all, would react differently than women to sexual objectification. This points to precisely the differences in power between men and women — not to mention the ways in which transgender people are objectified and excluded by power structures, or how race, place, class or sexuality complicate the matter. Even in the objectification of a stare or a catcall, a man remains a subject, Hefer claims. For those whose agency is already so widely suppressed, there is no such luxury. Hefer seems to presume that patriarchy and rape culture in particular are separable from sexual objectification. Contrary to Hefer’s presumption, objectification is the necessary groundwork for any form of violence, sexual or otherwise. Once a person, or any living being for that matter, has been established as an object, the nature of one’s responsibility to that object changes. Indeed, no subjects consider themselves responsible for the needs of objects. Objects do not have needs, or if they do, subjects certainly cannot hear them. We can all be more responsible to the needs — spoken or unspoken — of other subjects, regardless of ability, gender or anything else. Julian Park ’12 is an animist and considers squirrels, trees, soil and his cell phone subjects. He can be reached at julianfrancispark@gmail.com.
Time to relax By Ethan Tobias Opinions Columnist No champagne was popped and no balls dropped, but last week marked the Jewish New Year. The time now between the Jewish New Year and Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day, is a period to reflect on the previous year. It is a time to take an accounting of one’s self and one’s deeds. As busy Brown students beginning midterm season, it is easy to get swept up in the burgeoning work load of exams, papers and problem sets. It is too easy to put off making plans with friends or taking time to oneself. Let’s face it, Brown students by and large take on too many commitments and then compensate by placing sleep or social life on the back burner. I see my friends overextending themselves, and I sympathize with them because I get it. Downtime is a void that seems to need to be occupied, and we feel at our most productive when we are constantly busy. Lack of structure is scary, and by scheduling ourselves more, we remove the uncertainty from our days. But downtime can also provide the most magical moments in a day. One of my most pleasant Friday afternoons at Brown was spent catching up with a friend at Starbucks just because we were both there, and neither of us had anywhere else to be.
Having the free time to read the new best-selling book, start that novel you have always been eyeing or just go for a lazy stroll with a friend is a luxury that Brown students’ demanding schedules rarely afford them but is crucial to maintain sanity in the face of the relentless stream of papers, practices and meetings. The Jewish tradition instructs observers to take this time to step back from the precipice and reflect back on the year —
and understanding, thereby strengthening friendships. In Denmark, people strive for “Hygge,” a coziness that often comes after spending time with close family and friends, maybe while sitting and chatting over a long afternoon lunch, sipping hot cocoa and just enjoying the warmth of company as day slips into blissful evening. The Germans have “Gemutlichkeit,” which values closeness, social acceptance and above all, the
Brown students by and large take on too many commitments and then compensate by placing sleep or social life on the back burner.
a lesson that everyone can learn from. One of the more important traditions is to seek out friends and personally apologize for every wrongful act — even the most insignificant ones — you may have committed. These interactions remind us that what to one person was an off-handed sarcastic remark was a terrible blow to the self-confidence of another. By being aware of how our actions affect others, we can achieve renewed closeness
absence of anything hectic. These terms have no equivalents in the English language. It is as if our language is imprinted with the puritanical working spirit. The thought of taking a day to relax is at best understood with consternation and at worst decried as pure sloth. But ironically, the German economy is doing a lot better than ours right now and unemployment in Denmark is only 4.2 percent, nearly five points lower than
in the U.S. Counterintuitively, it appears that cutting back and taking time to reflect and be with friends and family is a lot more productive than constantly working. While many Brown students claim to be constantly busy with this project or that, an awful lot of that time is spent sitting in front of an open Word document staring at the blinking cursor while flipping through friends’ Facebook pages open in another window. Because downtime is a necessity of the human condition, it creeps into the in-betweens, forcing the voids back into our lives that cannot be scheduled away. What the German and Danish people understand is that downtime happens, whether we plan it or not, but in their culture, downtime has meaning and significance, while in ours, it is a “waste of time” or simply disregarded as procrastination. In a year, looking back, what will you remember? Time spent with a nose in a book or time spent in the company of those you care deeply about? With midterms underway, it is still important to study, but do not forget to also spend time with friends and relax. Downtime is going to find its way into your schedule. Would it not be better to spend that time in the company of real friends than to stumble through the ethereal world of Facebook? Ethan Tobias ’12 must have checked Facebook a half dozen times while writing this column. He can be reached at Ethan_Tobias@brown.edu.
Daily Herald Campus News the Brown
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Acclaimed video podcast narrates nature’s quirks By Katherine Long Senior Staff Writer
Courtesy of Spira Engineering Camp
Camp founders Natalie Serrino ‘12 and Amanda Kautz ‘12 hope to increase girls’ confidence and competitiveness in male-dominated engineering classes.
Engineering camp lacks necessary funds By Adam Toobin Contributing Writer
Spira Engineering Camp, a student-run, free summer camp that introduces high school girls to engineering, may not reopen this summer unless it can obtain funding from a new source. The Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Brown paid for the program last year through a grant from the National Science Foundation. Though the center reapplied for that grant this year, NSF did not renew Brown’s funding. The camp’s founders, Natalie Serrino ’12 and Amanda Kautz ’12, are now looking for new sources of revenue. The four-week program, which held its first session this July, aims to introduce high school girls to engineering and provide them the fundamentals and camaraderie necessary to pursue engineering through college. Many of the campers could be the first in their families to attend college. Serrino said she has noticed more and more women dropping
out of the engineering program during her three years at Brown. Women often lack confidence in their intellectual abilities, especially in math and science, she said. Confidence is a key factor for success in higher levels of engineering, she said. Spira builds a community to foster this confidence and provides female role models in the field, Serrino added. Girls should have images of engineers who are not just “old, dead guys,” she said. Serrino and Kautz designed a curriculum of activities that would be relevant to the girls with the help of the two coordinators, Farzanah Ausaluth ’14 and Elizabeth Costa ’14. Females received only 18.1 percent of bachelor’s degrees in an engineering discipline nationwide in 2010, according to the American Society for Engineering Education. That same year, Brown ranked seventh in the nation for percentage of engineering degrees received by women — 36.8 percent of engineering graduates were female.
In a survey taken at the end of this summer’s session, Spira campers were asked to rank how they felt about a variety of statements on a scale of one to 10. The students gave an average response of 9.94 when asked if they viewed the coordinators as role models. The statements “I believe women are just as capable of men in science, engineering, math and technology” and “Spira has strengthened the belief (in women’s equality)” also received high scores of 9.88. Spira provides free lunches and free transportation through Rhode Island Public Transit Authority. Since girls from a variety of socioeconomic and racial backgrounds attended Spira, the coordinators decided to remove money from the equation to create a closer community. Even something minor, such as some girls bringing lunch and others receiving it free, could skew the dynamics and take away from the experience, Serrino said. The founders saw high interest in jobs with the camp last summer — 11 applicants applied for two coordinator positions.
Blue Room hosts touch screen exhibit By Ana Colon BlogDailyHerald Staff Writer
The Stephen Robert ’62 Campus Center appealed to more than the usual senses Monday. On display was a touch screen with an interactive exhibit about the University. The purpose of the exhibit is “to run a ‘user study’ of how easy it is to learn to use our application,” said Andy van Dam, professor of computer science, who is behind the project. The application is called LADS — Large Artwork Displayed on the Surface. Using students as wide-eyed test subjects, van Dam said he and his
team hope eventually to integrate the device in museums, libraries and “other places that have collections of 2D images that viewers would like to interact with,”
News from Blog Daily Herald blogdailyherald.com but are “typically too fragile to be displayed.” The display was created by van Dam’s undergraduate research
group, which was led by two former Brown undergraduates now working on the project as part of their master’s degree program. Their goal? To take their project into the public domain. Van Dam said he wants to “have multiple large touch screens” on campus, particularly in the Cave, the University’s virtual-reality cube. Van Dam and his team said they are eager to present their project to students again after the success of the initial showing. Mary-Evelyn Farrior ’14, who described van Dam as the “rockstar of the CS department,” raved about the exhibit’s “cool factor.”
CreatureCast, a narrative-driven video podcast chronicling some of nature’s many quirks and oddities, first began capturing the imaginations of students, teachers, scientists and artists on campus two years ago. Since then, it has evolved from a side project to an undertaking with a life of its own, attracting attention both within the University and across the nation. Much of that attention is focused on the podcast’s unique meld of science and art, an intersection University administrators say they are hoping to explore more rigorously. The podcast, produced by Assistant Professor of Biology Casey Dunn, features the voices of scientists explaining their research. Electrofunk music provides a backdrop for the hand-drawn animations. Episodes, each around a minute long, highlight a variety of topics, such as the mating rituals of male cuttlefish — who broadcast iridescent wavelike patterns across their skin in synchronicity with other males — and the life cycle of the strangler fig, a parasitic plant. Dunn began CreatureCast to fulfill a “broader impact” requirement for a National Science Foundation grant he received in 2009. Broader impact plans more frequently take the form of teaching K-12 students about a professor’s research, developing education materials or partnering with museums. But Dunn decided to go a different route. Inspired by the narrative power of radio programs like “StoryCorps” and “This American Life,” Dunn wanted to tell scientists’ stories in an engaging way for listeners. Sophia Tintori ’09, Dunn’s former student, realized the project needed pictures, so she drew animation — “and that’s how CreatureCast started,” he said. “From the beginning, we were just making stuff that we like, having a good time — not shooting for a certain number of views, not working from the consumption side.” CreatureCast has been featured on websites including the Nature science blog Scitable, PopTech, Imagine Science and National Public Radio’s Science Friday and has received praise in the press. Tintori’s videos have also found their way to national and international film festivals. “People were getting very excited
about CreatureCast, which proved that students and faculty with different interests can come together and make things that are useful to the outside world,” said David Targan, associate dean of the College for science education. “It’s science you can learn on your iPhone.” Targan also pointed to the podcast’s potential as a teaching tool — and not just for students. “As a professor who’s been in the field for 20 years, it’s useful to be reminded of the misconceptions students have that often come to light in the creation of these videos,” he said. This semester, the Science Center in the Sciences Library purchased new animation equipment students can use to make video podcasts. The Granoff Center for the Creative Arts is allowing CreatureCast to use its audio recording studios. Natividad Chen ’13, who won an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award this semester to work on the podcast, is organizing technology workshops for students interested in making their own CreatureCasts. Students in Dunn’s BIOL 0410: “Invertebrate Zoology” class have contributed roughly half of the video podcasts to the project. Chen, who took the class last spring and made a video instead of writing a final paper — a choice students have had for the past two years — said that interest in making a podcast has jumped from four or five students in previous semesters to half the class, which had 36 students last semester. Even students not enrolled in the class have asked to get involved, Chen said. The jump in University support for the podcast is part of a recent initiative funded by the NSF to increase opportunities for informal science education, Targan said. That discussions are also underway with professors from Rhode Island School of Design to encourage greater interdisciplinary efforts across the arts and sciences. During annual grant application reviews with professors this week, Targan plans to use CreatureCast as an example of a way to satisfy broader impact requirements in the hopes of promoting similar interdisciplinary projects. “Brown is the perfect niche for something like this,” Dunn said. “At Carnegie Mellon or MIT, how many students would you have who’d played around with video cameras since they were five who were also interested in science?”
Courtesy of Natividad Chen
The podcast’s stop-motion episodes blur the boundary between science and art.